I am trying to prove that $\mathbb{Z}[x]$ and $\mathbb{Q}[x]$ are not isomorphic. I was thinking of arguing the following:

Suppose there exists an isomorphism $\varphi: \mathbb{Z}[x]\rightarrow\mathbb{Q}[x]$. Because isomorphisms are by definition surjective, there exist $x, y \in\mathbb{Z}[x]$ such that $\varphi(x) = c \in \mathbb{Q}[x]$ and $\varphi(y) = d \in \mathbb{Q}[x]$ for any $c, d\in\mathbb{Q}[x]$. Because $\varphi$ is an isomorphism we must have $\varphi(x+y) = \varphi(x) + \varphi(y)$ for all $x, y \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$. Namely, because polynomial addition is defined componentwise, we must have that the constant term of $\varphi(a + b) = c_{0} + d_{0}$ (where $c_{0}, d_{0}$ are the constant terms of $c$ and $d$ respectively. I would then argue that because $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Q}$ are not isomorphic as additive groups, no such isomorphism $\varphi$ exists. Is this a valid proof?

I've seen proofs that argue that because $\varphi(1) = 1$ for any homomorphism we have $1 = \varphi(2(1/2)) = 2(\varphi(1/2))$ so $\varphi(1/2)$ must be contained in $\mathbb{Z}[x]^{\times}$. Then because $\mathbb{Z}[x]^{\times} = \mathbb{Z}^{\times} = \{\pm1\}$ we have $2 \times \pm1 \neq1$, a contradiction. Is this any different than arguing that $\mathbb{Z}[x]$ and $\mathbb{Q}[x]$ each have a different number of units?

As discussed in Serkan's link, $R[x]\cong S[x]$ is possible even when $R,S$ are not isomorphic as rings. As additive groups, I'm not sure - but even if it were true when speaking about $R\not\cong S$ as additive groups, the fact of the matter is that that step in your proof is highly non-obvious and in need of justification.
–
anonMay 6 '13 at 1:03

1

You need to mention that you are referring to isomorphism as an additive group. Since isomorphism means a bijection that preserves structure, you need to explicitly say what structure you are talking about.
–
mezMay 6 '13 at 8:08

This is the best proof because it relies only on a simple lemma that $R[x]^* \cong R^*$ for any $R$.
–
6005Jan 9 at 13:34

@C-S: this is a bit out of date, but your claim as stated isn't true. The set of units in a polynomial ring are the polynomials whose constant term is a unit and whose other coefficients are nilpotent. The claim is true in the case of $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Q}$, since neither have any nonzero nilpotent elements.
–
Alex WertheimApr 16 at 3:15

@AlexWertheim Yeah, thanks. I didn't realize that important restriction on $R$ at the time.
–
6005Apr 16 at 12:18

It is often said that "category theory doesn't help to solve explicit problems". Well, here I thought: "Which functor on $\mathsf{CRing}$ could we apply to simplify the problem directly? What about the group of units $(-)^{\times} : \mathsf{CRing} \to \mathsf{Ab}$?" It worked out pretty well.
–
Martin BrandenburgJun 29 at 23:10

Although I've not time to read your proof, you could alternatively use that since $\mathbb{Q}$ is a field, $\mathbb{Q}[x]$ is a principal ideal domain whereas in $\mathbb{Z}[x]$ the ideal $(2,x)$ is an example of an ideal that is not principal.

Incidentally, this suggests the following salvage of lhf's now-deleted answer: associated to any subring $R$ of a ring $S$ is its "inverse closure" (I don't know if there's standard notation for this), given by the smallest subring of $S$ containing $R$ and the inverses of every element of $R$ existing in $S$. Given any ring, we can consider the inverse closure of its prime subring, which is its smallest inverse-closed subring. The inverse closure of the prime subring of $\mathbb{Z}[x]$ is $\mathbb{Z}$ while the inverse closure of the prime subring of $\mathbb{Q}[x]$ is $\mathbb{Q}$.

Suppose $\Bbb{Q}[x]$ and $\Bbb{Z}[x]$ are isomorphic as rings via some map $f$. Then the isomorphism descends into an isomorphism on the quotients $\Bbb{Z}[x]/(x)$ and $\Bbb{Q}[x]/\bigl(f(x)\bigr)$. Now $\bigl(f(x)\bigr)$ is a non-zero prime ideal of $\Bbb{Q}[x]$ and thus is maximal. But now this means that $\Bbb{Z}$ is isomorphic to a field, contradiction.

First I thought that it is a typo and that $f((x))$ doesn't make sense, but of course it makes sense and coincides with $(f(x))$ ... sorry. BenjaLim, feel free to rollback.
–
Martin BrandenburgMay 6 '13 at 9:35

The fundamental theorem of algebraic $K$-theory tells us that $K_*(R[X])\cong K_*(R)$ when $R$ is either $\mathbb Q$ or $\mathbb Z$, because these two rings are regular. The localization theorem for $K$-theory applied to Dedekind domains, and then specialized to $\mathbb Z$, then gives us a long exact sequence that looks like $$\cdots K_{i+1}(\mathbb Q)\to\bigoplus_{\text{$p$ prime}}K_i(\mathbb F_p)\to K_i(\mathbb Z)\to K_i(\mathbb Q)\to\cdots.$$ In particular, using the results of the computation done by Quillen of the higher $K$-theory of finite fields, we get an exact sequence $$0\to K_2(\mathbb Z)\to K_2(\mathbb Q)\to\bigoplus_{\text{$p$ prime}}\mathbb F_p^\times\to\{\pm1\}$$

Since the group $K_{4k-2}(\mathbb Z)$ is finite of order equal to $2c_k$ whenever $k$ is odd and $c_k$ is the numerator of $B_k/4k$, with $B_k$ the $k$-the Bernoulli number, we see that $K_2(\mathbb Z)\cong\mathbb Z/2\mathbb Z$, and this together with the last exact sequence shows that $K_2(\mathbb Z)\not\cong K_2(\mathbb Q)$.

Let $\varphi : \mathbb{Z}[x] \to \mathbb{Q}[x]$ be a homomorphism. We claim that $\varphi$ cannot be surjective. To see this, let $\varphi(x) = f$. Then the image of $\varphi$ consists of integer polynomials of $f$. In particular, no element of the image can have a coefficient with a denominator divisible by a prime which doesn't appear in the denominators of the coefficients of $f$. For example, if $f = \frac{x}{2} + \frac{x^2}{3}$, then no element of the image can have a coefficient with a denominator divisible by $5$.

(This argument shows that $\mathbb{Q}[x]$ cannot be generated by one element, so it's closely related to Mariano's answer. It can be straightforwardly generalized to prove the claim in Mariano's answer.)

In good-natured response to Mariano's challenge that my proof was the most complicated: We first use that the global dimension of a commutative ring $R$ can be computed by $\mathrm{sup}\{\mathrm{proj.dim}(R/I)\}$, the supremum being taken over all ideals of $R$, and where $\mathrm{proj.dim}(R/I)$ is the projective dimension of $R/I$, i.e. the minimum length projective resolution of $R/I$ as an $R$-module.

The ring $\mathbb{Q}$ is a field and so has global dimension zero, whereas it's easy to see that $\mathbb{Z}$ has global dimension one via the above. We now use one of the first results in dimension theory, which states that $R[x]$ has global dimension $\mathrm{gl.dim}(R) +1$, and so $\mathbb{Z}[x]$ has global dimension two, whereas $\mathbb{Q}[x]$ has global dimension one.

This has the additional property that shows that if $R$ and $S$ have different global dimensions, then $R[x]$ and $S[x]$ cannot be isomorphic.